Your Never to Old to do Stupid!

Last Thursday Alyce and I picked up our bees from a beekeeper in Earlysville, Va.  (I won't call us beekeepers yet because we have only been at it since Thursday!)  Virginia in the evening is magical. There is something about the way the sun shines through the hardwood trees in the mountains that makes everything a little dreamy.

And this is the dreamy environment that we were introduced to our bees.  We drove down a dirt road to his farm which was nestled in a little valley.  The sun was filtering through the trees and mingled in the filtered sunlight were flying insects - mainly bees.  The only sounds were the underlying hum of bees and the singing of birds.  As we got our of the truck, we were enveloped by a sweet smell of trees and hives. Everything on his property was handmade.  His workshop, where he was temporarily living, was covered in bark that he had hand cut from poplar trees.  He had various raised gardens, a small orchard,  and then his beehives.  Being a little intimidated by the idea of finally getting our bees and having to transport them in our beehive in the back of our truck!!; the environment that enveloped us worked it's magic to calm us.

Ryan was the name of the beekeeper we bought our bees from.  I had chosen not to receive my bees in the mail from Georgia, but to pay more to get home grown Virginia bees.  Ryan grew us a beehive of bees which he would move into my brand new beehive.  He had us suit up in our brand new bee suits and we entered our newest adventure....

Ryan opening the small beehive that was soon to be our bees

Alyce in her brand new bee suit with gloves

And it was the moment that Ryan opened up our package, along with the sweet smell of the nectar, the humming sound of the bees, the way the evening sun was coming through the trees, and finally...  seeing the hundreds of little busy bees -  that I think I decided that I might love this!

Taking out frames to put in our beehive

Making sure the queen was laying eggs

Once he checked our package for an active queen and a large amount of laid eggs called 'brood', he was ready to drop them in our hive.  Once in our hive, he duck tapped the front entrance (good old duck tape) and tightened the strap around our hive.

Our hive ready for transport

I didn't even know how to use that strap to hold the hive together for transport!  You can see the bees on the 'doorstep' so to speak that were returning from 'foraging' (notice the new vocabulary).

Ryan's beehives surrounded by an electric fence

Painted different colors so bees recognize their hive

The sun was beginning to set below the mountain, and we wanted to get home before it was dark.  So we picked up our live, noisy beehive (a little scary) and walked it to the back of my son's truck - we were now on our own!!  Driving home was  - a little scary - (you will see this phrase a lot!).  He had warned us that they may be a little grouchy from bouncing on the long dirt road to my son's house.  We had an hours drive before we got to that dirt road and every turn we made until then was - a little scary!  

We arrived at our farm and parked the truck.  We suited up - gloves and all - lifted the beehive and placed the hive on its stand.  Then I had to remove the top of the hive to remove the duck tape and cardboard he had placed in the frames to keep them steady. I was really very calm about it because I was in my suit.  The bees were full of nectar and quite docile really and I was very confident through the ordeal!

Now for stupid!!

We bought a second package of bees from him and picked them up on this past Saturday night.  Feeling very comfortable - because we had already been through this once before!!! we picked up our hive and headed home.  When we got home, it was late and now dark.  We had to park the truck so that the head lights faced the hive.  Feeling very confident, I said to Alyce, we don't need to suit up....   Now I can't tell you how many times we had been told through book, video and class - you always suit up...   But no... stupid was at play.  We placed the hive down on the stand, and I removed to top and the pissed off bees came out.... and I got bit of course!   I did verify that if you quickly scratch out the bee stinger, it minimizes the impact.  

Your never too old to act stupid....

More pictures as I check on the hives for the first time later this week...